Divorce cost Van Barneveld a lot of money: ''With me it was at least sixty percent''

Raymond van Barneveld has managed to earn back his position in the top-32 of the world rankings within two years of his comeback. As a result, 'Barney' is among the seeded players at the World Darts Championship later this month.

Van Barneveld owes his return to the global top-32 mainly to his performance at the Grand Slam of Darts. At that tournament, he reached the semifinals, including after two wins over world number one Gerwyn Price. It was his highlight of the season.

''I actually had a pretty bad year,'' he said in an interview with the AD. ''In 2021 I still won a Pro Tour, but this year it was really scraping nickels and dimes. For example, I was in prize money at Pro Tours eighteen times in a row, but eighteen times almost nothing doesn't get me anywhere.''

With his semifinal at the Grand Slam of Darts, Van Barneveld earned 53,500 pounds for the ranking in one fell swoop. ''I had locked myself into that. The fact that I qualified was already nice. And I hadn't won four matches in a row all year, but suddenly I did. Not without luck either, but I did win twice against the world number 1 Gerwyn Price, both in the pool and in the quarterfinals. Because I became pool winner, I got 3,500 pounds bonus, which put me just over Adrian Lewis in the world rankings.''

In the same interview, Van Barneveld acknowledged that he returned to the circuit partly for financial reasons. ''A lot of people think I'm totally loaded, but for the big money I peaked too early. That came later. Also, don't forget that we pay a fair bit of tax on the money we make. And then with me, divorce came on top of that. They say that costs you fifty percent of what you have. Well, with me it was as much as sixty percent. At least."

A new retirement is going to take some time if it is up to the five-time world champion. ''I want to continue for another five years or so and I'm not 18 anymore. I really need to start living a little healthier. It's nice that with the Toto Dart Kings (the team Van Barneveld is part of) we now get support on nutrition and such. I'm definitely going to take advantage of that.''